


Venom: Here was a man

by TheHaven



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse), Venom (Comics)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21633781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHaven/pseuds/TheHaven
Summary: Eddie Brock is dead. And Peter Parker is having a crisis. And Dylan Brock has a question.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. Edward Brock

Eddie Brock is dead.

I know, you’re probably thinking “Who? The big monster guy?” And I’d say “Well, yes and no. He’s bonded to the little monster guy. And when they work together, they turn into the big monster guy.” That guy. Venom. Big white eyes. More teeth than a shark. Suuuuper long tongue. That guy. To tell you the truth. He started cleaning up his act a few years ago. Found God. Went on some kinda religious crusade against the symbiotes. Well, maybe cleaning up his act was being generous. Point is, 

Eddie Brock’s dead. And me? I’m Peter Parker. We were arch enemies for a while. He tried to kill my parents (who weren’t actually my parents. Long story.) tried to kill me because apparently I was the root of all his problems. (Really liked blaming other people, Eddie.) and a whole bunch of other things. 

He’s dead. And I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about it. He’s tried to kill me. My Wife (at the time.) tried to kill my parents (again, clones.) birthed a symbiote to one of the most psychotic monsters in America. 

But he’s saved my life. He’s saved all of New York. He’s fought the God of his “other”. He saw the light after being diagnosed with cancer. He’s helped me fight against the aforementioned psychotic monster. And now? Now I’m sitting on rooftop with some fast food, trying to figure out if Eddie Brock was a good person or not. And to tell you the truth? I don’t think he knew either. I think something happened, late at night in his gym. After deadlifting who knows how many weights. I think he and that alien bonded to him decided that he can’t keep being whatever he was at that time. I think after my parents. He realized how many people, innocent people get caught in the crossfire of what I do. And him and that alien decided that they were gonna protect those innocent people. And for the longest time, I didn’t see him. We agreed to stay out of each other’s way. Me, home in New York. Him in San Francisco. I’d hear news reports of their new “Lethal Protector”. Saving children and threatening to eat bank robbers. He really laid it on thick when it came to indication. Honestly, you’d think being a big alien monster would be enough. But not for him. Then there was some other there along the road. Life Foundation. The clones of the symbiote. Carnage. (Again.) 

And then? He got sick. He ended up selling the symbiote to the highest bidder, donated all the money to charity before he died. But he didn’t, it came back with mac gargan, and after a fight. Eddie wasn’t just Venom, he was Anti-Venom. And with Anti-Venom he decided to go back to his roots. Not the trying to murder me roots. The protector roots. When Spider-Island, as the news called it, happened, Eddie made a vaccine with part of his symbiote. He saved New York. Reed Richards stood by him on national TV and called him a hero. 

Then there was the “Symbiote Slayer” phase. He had a lot of weapons after all the years. He killed some of his spawns, clones. And then it got worse. The Savage Six (not to be confused with my six) had kidnapped him, and forced the Toxin symbiote on him. They fought. And according to Flash, agreed to stay out of each other’s ways. Kinda like we did way back when. Now I know this is a lot, and really, really, confusing, but I'm almost done. Carnage happened again. Something about an elder God. I really don’t know. And after that, Flash ended up losing the symbiote. A guy named Lee Price found it. And after a week of total confusion on my part, Eddie got it back. To tell you the truth, I still don’t know why Eddie went back for it. After everything they’ve done to each other. And everything that the symbiote dealt with in their time apart. I really don’t know. And I don’t think he knew either. 

Now this might all be too much. But we haven’t even gotten to the big stuff. The God of Symbiotes, Knull, had come to earth. Eddie pushed him back. Killed God. But that was only the tip of the iceberg, Carnage was revived by a cult of his worshippers, and attacked all of New York in an attempt to get it ready for Knull’s return. Carnage and Eddie both fought, Eddie had him in the sky (symbiotes can grow wings, by the way. Don’t ask) and they fell. And Eddie fell hard. The impact was too strong. I saw the symbiote try to put him back together. But it was too late. The tiny black alien looked up at me trembling. 

“I… can’t fix him… can’t fix Eddie…” 

He died. His mangled body was staring up at me, the guy he tried to kill for years. I had heard him say something to himself when he had to buy us time.

“I can pretend to be a hero for ten minutes.” And for those ten minutes he was. He wasn’t a monster scaring people he’d sworn to save. He wasn’t killing symbiotes mercilessly. For the second time in his life. Eddie Brock was a full fledged hero. 

So now you’re caught up. And now you can know the reason for my little history session and moral crisis. And that’s because there’s a twelve year old boy standing at my door. And he just said to me…

“What can you tell me about my dad?”


	2. red rain

The question hangs in the air for a few moments. Peter was having a crisis internally. He could tell him how his father tried to kill him more times than he could count. How he sold the symbiote for millions of dollars because he was essentially on his deathbed. A dilemma. Truth that will shatter his perception of his father, or a lie that keeps it intact? 

“Well…” Peter started. They were sitting in the living room of his apartment. It wasn’t the cleanest thing in the world. But Dylan didn’t care to pay attention. the only thing he was focused on was his question. 

“Eddie….. Was a man.” Well, that’s a way to say it.  
“Yeah. No shit.” Dylan dryly replied. The mouth on this kid. Father’s son alright. Peter sighed before he continued. 

“Eddie… was a really complicated guy.”  
“He was a monster.” Dylan said.   
“N- Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? Your dad was someone who… He made a lot of mistakes. And he wasn’t the best person. But he was changing. He was trying to make amends.”  
“But it was too late.” Dylan replied.   
“It’s never too late.” Peter quickly responded. “It is never too late to change who you are. Okay? If you take anything away from this, it has to be that.” Peter told him. 

“I… I think if things went differently. Your dad would’ve been what he always wanted to be. A hero. He could’ve finally made peace with what he did. What he’d done.” It was at this point that Peter noticed the tears in his eyes. Dylan was gripping the legs of his jeans. Trying his damndest to not let the tears fall. He put a hand on his shoulder. 

“It’s okay, buddy.” He told him as he brought him into a hug. “It’s okay.”  
“He never told me! He never told me I was his son! Why didn’t he tell me?!” He sobbed into Peter’s shoulder. 

“I… I don’t know, kid. I’m sorry. I don’t know” he said as he held him tighter.

“He said he was gonna protect me!” He sobbed harder. Peter would give anything in the world for the words that would help him. Anything that could make it hurt less. But there isn’t. It’s a hurt that has to be cried out. To be exorcised from the body. After a while, he stopped. They ate some food for dinner. Peter let him have the bed in his room, while he took the couch. He didn’t want to go back to his father’s just yet. So Peter obliged in letting him stay. He laid on the couch, staring into the ceiling. Sleep had been avoiding him for the past few hours. 

What am I supposed to do, Brock? 

~~~~

If you were a bystander during the attack, you’d confuse the two seven foot tall monsters as that, monsters. but these weren’t monsters, no, they were two men wearing their monsters as armor. One, tall and black, with wings jutting out from its shoulder blades. the other quite literally wearing armor. the black one’s long tongue flicked in different directions as it postured. The crimson one stood tall and calm. If you strained your ears just a bit, you could hear chuckling over the chaos around you. 

“Hehehe, haha. HAHAA!! Look at you!” the red one laughed. “Standing in front of me like a wounded dog. pray tell, daddy, how did we get here?” he egged on. The winged monster growled and leapt forward, revealing something akin to talons on the ends of it’s large hands. “GRAAAHHH!!” it howled. The red one swiftly dodged the attempted tackle. They had effectively switched places. Red’s laughing ceased, but a chuckle escaped it’s fanged mouth in the middle of its speech. “Look around, Eddie boy!” he said as he motioned to the chaos around him. They sky had turned a dark red. Almost like it had been stained in the world’s own blood. What once was New York City was now something like a battlefield from the last circle of Hell. “I won! You lost!”. 

Eddie could feel it, that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him that Cletus was right. But the hundreds of voices in his head were telling him otherwise. He heard his other at the forefront. “Don’t listen to him, Eddie! We can still win! Still fight!” it encouraged. But it was all becoming too much for him. Eddie was on all fours, he felt like an animal. A dying dog pushed into a corner. He had tried so hard to fix this. But it wasn’t going to be enough. He got to be a hero again. If only for a little while. 

No. No. He wasn’t going to go out like this. He was going to do something. He was going to make his son proud, the son he was too scared to tell. The son that’s not gonna have a father. But there’s no other way. 

Eddie used the last of his strength to push himself to his feet. His wings jutted out to his sides. He took a deep breath and lunged to Cletus, crashing into him, but not letting himself fall to the ground. He had a running start, and was going to put his all into what he was about to do. His wings assaulted the ground in an attempt to get him airborne. But it wasn’t working. But it needed to. He had to get Cletus away from all these people, if there were any left. Cletus struggled against him. Sinking claws into his shoulders. Eddie shouted in pain, but didn’t stop. He tried for another jump, and was off. He was soaring into the air. A few feet. Then fifteen feet. Then thirty. Then seventy. Then he was hundreds of feet into the air. New York City looked like a scorched earth below him. “Let go of me!” Cletus screamed. “You’re gonna kill us both you crazy son of a bitch! I’m the crazy one, here!” He protested. Eddie took a taloned hand and dug it straight into cletus’ back. A scream in agony was his reward. “What’s your play here?!” He demanded. “I’ve won! You’ve lost! Get it through your THICK SKULL!!!” He screamed even louder. In contrast. Eddie was remarkably calm. He knew what he had to do, and didn’t have any qualms about it. 

“Y’know Cletus…” he started. “I guess it was always gonna turn out like this.” He was flying even higher now. Closing in on a thousand feet. “What do you mean?!” Cletus demanded. His fiery red and black face starting to show something that looked an awful lot like fear. He was starting to realize that this dance they do, all of this violence had to come to a head. Someone had to pay the price. 

“Promise me you’ll stay dead this time. You son of a bitch.” Eddie said. And then tucked his wings into him. Shooting himself like a bullet down to the earth. He was banking on the impact to be strong enough to reduce the psychopath he was holding to paste. And also that he could react fast enough to bank right. The was barreling into them as they were getting startling close to the ground. It was at this point that Eddie felt something pierce his chest. A hand that had been morphed into a spike had gone directly into his heart. Blood gushed from his gaping wound. And then it shifted. The spiked morphed and closed the hole, but digging itself deeper into him. Cletus’ laughter had reached its peak. He was cackling maniacally as the ground got closer and closer. “If we’re going down… WE’RE GOING DOWN TOGETHER!!” He screamed. And then…

Impact. The monster known as Cletus Kasady. Carnage. The Red Prince to Knull’s Black king was gone, the embering light left his eyes. He was a mangled mess. To the side of him had rolled off Eddie Brock. Reporter. Venom. Anti-Venom. Toxin. Venom. Survivor. Villain. Monster. 

Hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took a while longer than it should have but here you go


End file.
